Nadir

Everyone seems to have one big moment,

One big decision that changed their life.

Some don't.

A gradual growth to a climax,

That's more of what happened for me.

One happy childhood, a great youth, praised for maturity and respect.

“Responsibility” was a title for the best of our kind and they told me to wear it with honor.

From the outside I smiled with the might of a thousand suns I was supposed to have.

From the inside I was no such poster child.

The paralyzing fear of speaking brimming over with self-doubt and the supposed knowledge that everyone is better than you is what fueled the childhood of this small girl.

Maturity was the plague that I was praised for catching,

Respect the frozen tongue of someone too eager to please.

No one knows what goes on inside your head unless you let it slip out the cave in your skull.

But the graveyard of my mouth is nothing but closed doors,

And so the pain has to manifest itself in some other way.

And so I trudge to dimly lit rooms full of cobwebs and flickering lights all around as I step frozen into the small room,

Freshly cleaned by the pounding waterfall that now berates my shoulders as a nine-tailed whip would a sinner.

Car headlights hang over head from the ceiling, piercing my retinas with a spear of light blinding me from reason.

Still- my mind catches hold of the handle and manages to guide the scissors as they slide seamlessly through smooth wrapping paper,

Creating thick red lines that spill cowardice,

Spelling out the lies of what maturity someone once found in my silence.

Now nettles from the pines rain from above,

Stinging against the current of warm, sticky broth,

Red as the murdered chicken from the soup of the sick.

Sick- of being held to a standard I never met in the first place.

I wandered until I found a void paradox to fill my head,

Showing me the lines to walk to be safe as my final destination grows ever unsafer.

“Not there, they’ll see. No, no, too obscure.”

Acid from pools of glassy grey eyes rushes over cheeks of baby skin that refuses to burn with the rest of me.

My past stoked the Salem fire for the witch they knew they were creating.

Hoping against everything I’d throw myself in.

Instead I choke,

Drowning in the acid and the beating of ancient drums while jaws of a demon lined with tile closes in on me.

Once upon a time there was hope in my legs as they pulled feet,

But now they've succumbed to helplessness.

Shackles of iron dragging.

Now my heart is empty, a broken bottle long forgotten and collecting dust,

Yet still protected by the terrified rolly polly girl curled tightly in on herself.

A child's hand, a society, a stigma, threatening to crush it.

Terror still clings to my mouth casting new webs of thought to filter through before even an “um” is allowed to be uttered through it.

Now rough fabric scrapes over seas of red and the mountainous hills of my ribs that don't look as skinny as they feel.

Now bandaids and circus clown makeup act as temporary boundaries until the prison bars can finally close behind me,

Hiding me from reality.

Now pills can try to reverse confuse my own immune system warriors who’ve declared mutiny.

Now I’m protected by an unbreakable forcefield of blankets and nightmares.

Now the silent can fall asleep.

Now the silent can sleep because being awake feels like death,

But I know death isn’t any good for company unless he’s taking you away.